Welcome to Gaia! ::

hi guys just watch this while i get set up
(this is still relevant because the journal is not fully set up yet so HA)










xxx[Welcome to the journal of Varrus and Leander di Laurentis! I'm thyPOPE; you can call me thy or Pope or POPE or pretty much anything as long as it's not someone else's nickname and you let me know that's what you're calling me * u* Feel free to PM me for plotting with either of my characters (or just the one right now; heeeee!) - I will always try to respond in a timely manner.

Contact Information
Skype|xxxxpontabulous
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I've also got GTalk and YIM, but I don't give those out freely. Feel free to PM me for them, though!

If I am online on one of my messengers, then I am online on all of them (I always use either Pidgin or Meebo) - consequently, if you don't see me on your online list; just IM me, or PM me if that doesn't net a response within ten minutes. I do have a habit of appearing invisible, after all!]

Name: Leander Lorenz “Lenz” di Laurentis
Age: 47
Alliance: Panymese
Region: { While Leander’s a Mishkanite by birth, he spent a period of his life moving around before settling back in Mishkan – his current place of residence. He just set off for a journey, but now he’s arrived back ashore in Mishkan. He's traveled to Imisus to avoid his brother. }
Appearance: { At forty-seven, Leander isn’t the sprightly young man he once was. The evidence of aging spreads quickly, and that’s certainly true with him. His formerly pitch-black hair is now streaked with slightly more salt than pepper (though thankfully his hairline only just begun to recede), and it’s more stiff than wavy. The smooth buff skin of his youth has been replaced by a tanner complexion wrought with calluses and wrinkles. Due to his refusal to maintain a completely sedentary lifestyle, his upper body is still quite fit, although his muscles are beginning to lose firmness there, too, and he’s walked with a limp for years. He has large-palmed hands that itch to move. His eyes are as bright and rose-colored as they’ve ever been, though. He keeps a mustache and beard cropped close to his face. }
Personality: Leander has always been dedicated to the military – stories of war have fascinated him for almost all his life. To him, the Imperial Guard and the Emperor still come first, although it’s been a decade since he was discharged from that group. He weighs them before almost anything, and clings to the notion that authority in the form of the guard is absolute. To this point, he has a strong moral compass, which he believes should be the guidelines to everyone’s lives. These qualities often make him feel paranoia about other people, though – he thinks there are many manifestations of suspicious activity, and while he won’t actively investigate, he never thinks anyone’s intentions are pure. As a result, he appears to be a reclusive man who prefers the company of books and machinery to real people. After all, in company he’s usually self-absorbed, not paying much heed to the general course of a conversation, even if he contributes from time to time. He’s a kindhearted man, though, and isn’t averse to helping others, if he’s asked to do so (on the other hand; he’s not likely notice someone needs help if they don’t ask directly). And even if he turns you down, he’ll usually do so politely – he was raised with etiquette, after all, and will treat someone well even if he’s suspicious of their moral standing. Now that he’s arrived back from a most taxing journey, though, he’s far more closed off, snippy, and suspicious of others than ever before.
History: { If you ask Leander, any young boy’s dream is to join the military and become a hero – to fight for your people and to defend your beliefs (although he’s never had a concrete idea of what those beliefs are; just that they are noble and good). Fortunately for him, as the second son of a baronet he’s always had plenty of time for dreaming. While he was tutored growing up alongside his brother, he had a much larger passion for hunting and for stories of heroes fallen in war (histories, however, interested him as long as they pertained to war).

As a teenager, though, he moved to Pwlanarfyll to train for the imperial guard (after all, he’d never inherit the baronetcy), along with a boy around his age who lived, to his surprise, in the town bordering his father’s baronetcy. They became fast friends despite their initial class differences, and were moved to Helios together to train for corporal status after both receiving honors as privates. Jonathan Baines was more charismatic by far than Leander, but they worked best together – when they eventually became corporals in their early twenties (just after Jonathan had his first son), their squads were known for almost always completing training together. Jonathan was the man who first gave him the nickname of ‘Lenz,’ one that he hardly uses today outside of old acquaintances from the guard. Leander and Jonathan were an admirable pair, and while Jonathan was inevitably the better decision-maker (being promoted to captain eventually, although Leander himself never progressed beyond the corporal rank), Leander certainly stood out for sheer devotion to the military. As an individual fighter, however, Leander was usually concerned first for himself and then for those around him.

Later, he began to work as a mechanic of sorts among his own squad – although he had joined to fight for the empire, and he did, he liked looking at the pocketwatches and later the weapons and seeing how they were meant to be put together. For some reason working with weapons was far more fulfilling than seeing the action he’d always wished for as a child – working to keep the peace and to further the emperor’s goals. That was, therefore, the type of work he settled into once his training was complete and he was only called into service as a guard when he was necessary – which wasn’t, admittedly, rare, but it meant he had enough time to settle into his work as a mechanic outside of his guard duties.

Leander’s father died as Leander’s thirty-fourth birthday neared, and the baronetcy’s reins were now in his brother’s hands. Leander moved permanently into Jonathan Baines’ hometown, using part of the small sum of money he inherited to settle and begin his business as a mechanic. At first he only really repaired things like clocks or machines needed for farmwork, but later he worked on mechanical weapons – which were what he considered his true calling. He liked the feel of them in his hands, and their familiarity. He continues work on them today, and is constantly trying to develop new ways to improve modern weaponry for the military.

Some years later, Leander and Jonathan were on assignment in Pwlanarfyll. He still isn’t sure exactly how it happened – just that somehow, Jonathan became infected with the plague that was beginning to sweep Panymium. Leander has no idea why he was never infected with the same disease. He wasn’t there to witness Jonathan’s death (since Jonathan was discharged from the guard due to his infirmity), but was himself discharged a few months later after a particularly incapacitating leg injury in a skirmish. His former comrades have always claimed it was because he and Jonathan couldn’t function separately, but he’s fairly sure it was simply all the other injuries he’d endured finally taking a toll on his reflexes.

He never married and never sired children – he’d never felt the interest, after all, and it wasn’t as if it were extremely important to the family (he does have several nieces and nephews). He continued his line of work, however, and grew comfortable in it. He sees his brother a few times a year.

A few months ago, though, Leander was informed of a chance to embark on a journey on the behalf of Emperor Rine himself. This, naturally, was a chance he leapt at, even knowing he didn’t have an especially large chance at becoming part of the crew. He knew a small amount about life on a ship, naturally, as it had been a fairly common method of transportation back before the plague, but he’d never been part of the crew before. Similarly, he’d had little opportunity to travel upon one for years, so he was pleasantly surprised to find he’d been accepted upon the Rosa as the ship’s resident mechanic - machinery, after all, was something he was known for understanding.

The journey was fair, at first – Leander didn’t expect difficulties at all until they arrived at Ardenth. Not all of the crew was experienced in the matters of traveling the seas, but their captain was an extraordinarily talented man, and they got along with one another and bonded well enough. That was until only two days into their journey an albatross fell dead upon the deck of the ship.

It wasn’t just any albatross: it was a frightening, blackened thing, with a powerful stench as if it had been deceased for weeks rather than the amount of time it would take for an albatross to fall from a flight in midair. There was no doubt that it was a Plague, and Leander agreed with the decision to toss it off at first. After all, touching it would lead to becoming infected with the disease yourself…right? Certainly leaving it there would guarantee the infection of the entire crew.

Five days later – only a week into the journey – came the discovery of a cook that had already been infected during the short time the Plague had rested on the decks of the ship. Who knew who else was sick? The plague was incredibly infectious, and symptoms could take days to show up. And Leander had been among the men ordered to throw that cook overboard: he was most certainly doomed to die. The ship turned back toward Mishkan with urgency: there was certainly no chance of being allowed into Ardenth if the plague reigned on the ship. They’d need a new crew.

They were sailing against the wind now, though, and that fact was made even more difficult by the fact that the Captain was one of the next to die. Men were breaking out in full-out fights now: they all wanted to make sure they had their own rations and their own supplies. Everyone could be suspected of concealing a case of the plague, even though all in their right minds knew that the plague showed obvious symptoms. Leander was confused enough when symptoms didn’t show on his body a week later; the fact that people he’d considered comrades were now turning on him was enough to make him suspicious of everyone. He considered himself a scrupulous man, though, and survived by avoiding contact with people who seemed healthy (they couldn’t remember that he had touched infected bodies – right?) and killing those who showed symptoms. Luckily for him, he still retained knowledge of how to use his body and the environment around him when he lacked weapons, and for some reason, symptoms of the plague never showed up for him.

That didn’t mean that it wouldn’t happen once he arrived ashore, though. The plague could be known to bide its time.

In the fourth week at sea, though, with the crew at a dangerously low level, he began to draw out of his shell once more to cooperate with his fellow crew members. They all had to take on new roles and work together. In the end, all the mattered was that the men remaining got home. }

the tusk

i'm going to have to delete all these comments in the morning, aren't i? <_< o-oh well ; n;

oh gdi didn't wait long enough

roleplay log

guys you're all RPing with me right right? * v* <33 gosh i hope no one's reading this ahaha

growth progress

hi thy your timing is terrible and you just used the wrong word oops u_u

possessions

oooooooo got that one first try! go me! ; v;

(but this one failed ; n; )

14

don't worry the next one is the one that i am ~prioritizing~ because credit is due where credit is due ; v;